<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>fear is not the end of this by CampionSayn</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745189">fear is not the end of this</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn'>CampionSayn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>okay, but What If...? [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (Cartoon 2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi, They're ALL stupid Your Honor, post-Episode: s02e26 Come Undone, post-episode: Grim Judgment, these guys need soft things c'mon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:53:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Fred tries to be nice with Gary and Ethan not just because he is completely oblivious to the social order, but because there's, like, a reason?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daphne Blake/Fred Jones, Gary/Ethan, Velma Dinkley/Marcie "Hot Dog Water" Fleach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>okay, but What If...? [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>fear is not the end of this</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title based on the song <em>I Alone,</em> by Live.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fact: both Gary and Ethan had lived in Crystal Cove their whole lives, born and raised, and had little inclination to live anywhere else, even with the opportunities afforded to them being especially good at soccer--regardless of Fred screwing them out of their scholarships, scouts still came along every other game.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Fact: they're both assholes, and even when they managed to get dates--on purpose with the Grim costumes or otherwise--it never lasted very long.<br/>
<br/>
(Gary liked to hold the bragging rights that out of both of them, he had the record for having a girlfriend, "Thirty-one days; suck it!")<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Fact: Fred Jones has caught them in the locker room together at least a dozen times well after everyone else had gone home, almost always naked or just on the way there, and has never said a thing to anyone, ever--not even the gang.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
After the Grim incident, Ethan was the one that made him really want to change his mind on that, though.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Not in the usual way of teenagers threatening someone into silence and it blowing up in their face, but purely by the accident of setting off Fred's protective instincts when he and his loser friends were finished doing something with some nutcase in a bird costume and <em>another</em> talking dog. Fed had almost run Ethan of the road he was walking, on the way to Daphne's while Ethan had been on the way to Gary's.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Ethan's dad had been on a bender again and his son's nose hadn't stopped bleeding when the Mystery Machine's lights in the dark made him squint, raise up that hand that wasn't covered in snot and blood, drop the carry-on bag that could keep him for three whole nights--which it would, he would know, because he'd had to do it before.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
There had been a whole thing Fred's not-dad Mayor Dad had gone through with the school system when it came to recognizing abuse victims and there had been the loudest verbal argument Fred had ever heard from the man for a whole week while on the phone when he made sure the school system had current sex education procedures updated, "Even if I have to <em>drag</em> this town into the twenty-first century, it will happen, so help me you--!"<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Their poor principal had been harassed for exactly one day after the updates had taken place, by the parents of the teenagers, before ex-Mayor Jones had Sheriff Stone...do something that Fred still didn't quite follow, but had worked. Somehow?<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<em>(Velma had seemed slightly less bitter towards Shaggy that week, too, for whatever reason.)</em><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Fred had aced the Sex Ed. course, and the questionnaire the students had been handed on physical/verbal/emotional assault and/or abuse, so even if he was very bad at understanding social cues, he still understood that Ethan walking alone in the dark in the middle of the night for Gary's place was a red flag.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
So he pulled over, opened the door and offered a ride, not even having to be told to go to Gary's. Not even needing directions after the Grim incident, the route easiest taken already ingrained in Fred's mind. Creepy as it was, Ethan was grateful enough not to have to speak, just accepted the little trash bin Fred handed him and told him not to lean his head back to try and staunch the bleeding, "Velma says that's really old misinformation that causes more problems than it fixes."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
When Fred pulled into the driveway, Gary was waiting on the porch, eating another ten thousand calories in pizza like almost every soccer player on the team that wasn't Fred. He looked about ready to burst out of his own skin when Ethan stepped out of the Mystery Machine, but was waved off, shied away from the blue van, and simply took Ethan's bag for him.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
There was the standard awkward pause, wondering if it was really worth saying anything, but Ethan wasn't ungrateful. An asshole, but not ungrateful.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Quick, clean, no complications. He just let Fred direct one of his stupid, oblivious smiles towards both of them, and then shut the door, dragging Gary by the arm into his own house like he owned the place.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
They didn't act any different towards him at school, out of school, in public, in the line of sight of anyone, but they were slightly less horrible to Fred and the Mystery Losers as the whole lot of them seemed more and more occupied with whatever they did in their little club.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
So, it turned out that Fred and his friends were trying to save the world while their schoolmates, their soccer team, their maybe-more-than a friend, their parents and everyone else weren't looking.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Ethan and Gary had been in the middle of one of their locker room moments when the ground tore itself apart, metal hands brought them under and they found themselves rounded up by a psychotic parrot, a guy that owned Destoido, and a pair that looked like a gross, older version of Daphne and an arrogant, older-ish version of Fred.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Hot Dog Water had been trying to get away from those two, calling them Chiles and Reeves and, "Holy shit, weren't those Fred's parents?"<br/>
<br/>
Ethan hadn't said anything at the time back to Gary, both of them trying momentarily to intercede for their classmate that neither of them had any love lost for after she tricked them into climbing that stupid mountain and they'd ended up in full-body casts. They still felt like it was wrong to just stand there while Fred's fucked-up parents tried to grab at her, though, so they did their best.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
A kick, a blow, an attempt to land a punch on Fred's birth dad <em>(that was so fucked up, that was so fucked up)</em> and trip up his mom <em>(so gross, so gross, so gross)</em> and all they got for their trouble was a taser to the ribs for the both of them from the half-dozen drone robots standing by.<br/>
<br/>
Hot Dog Water got taken away, Gary and Ethan and the rest of their classmates sent to work in the slowly coming together winding tunnels and pit they were made to dig and pick at.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
They stuck close together, trying to breathe through the pain, like they'd been tied up in the center of a goal post and hit a hundred times with a ball filled with lead; for once hoping that Mystery Incorporated was on their way to mount a rescue.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
And they did. <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
And they didn't.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
(Ethan was glad Gary was holding his hand when monsters--real ones, savage and cruel--came for them.)<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
And everything seemed to fade like an old TV screen. So much white until it turned to black.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think we did something wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Only if Coach Jones and Doctors Reeves-Chiles <em>also</em> did something wrong," Gary answered, punting their ball right through Ethan's defense, regardless of the fact that he was actually ready this time. <br/>
<br/>
Ethan really shouldn't have volunteered to try out the position for goalie. He was too short, attention always on the ball, but always forgetting that he could use his hands.<br/>
<br/>
But it wasn't like they'd had a choice.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
The team hadn't been doing well with Fred heading out of town, being accepted to a university only Coach Jones really knew anything about, barely even saying goodbye to his parents and friends and not calling back very often when they left messages on his phone.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
It was so weird. They'd had the best game of their lives two weeks before, Fred and Daphne having given in to their parents telling them to tie the knot the month before that, plans and looking forward to the future all in place and then--<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
And then. Full stop.  <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Even Marcie was worried as hell, calling on them at Gary's twice so far in tears because it was like the Velma she knew was replaced by some stranger wearing her skin that still loved her, talked to her, and seemed to understand her; but she didn't really <em>know</em> her.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
And when they all thought about it, that seemed true for all of the gang that had left. <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
In the short week before leaving, Daphne had actually blown up at her parents for the way they treated her sisters, "You keep questioning someone's life choices long enough, then of <em>course</em> they get frozen into inaction! And picking on them won't help!" With her storming out and telling them the wedding was off until she got back from University--if ever.<br/>
<br/>
Shaggy and Scooby had kept eating all the food in the culinary club before anything could be tasted by the judges and kicked out after the fifth time; Mrs. Rogers trying to be understanding and Mr. Rogers trying to see if maybe their son needed to see a doctor for health reasons--and the two had just seemed stunned and unsure of what they were supposed to say.<br/>
<br/>
Velma had told her parents about leaving, explaining that it was just something she had to do--with their full support, of course, they were the Dinkleys after all. But she hadn't told Marcie until the last minute and it had practically broken the girl's heart even if Velma had cried exactly when Marcie had and neither of them really seemed to understand why. It wasn't like they were breaking up, just adjusting to a long-distance relationship. <em>(Gary hoped and Ethan crossed his fingers.)</em><br/>
<br/>
But the worst was Fred, who seemed to tense up whenever someone patted him on the shoulder or someone smiled at him for catching all the balls on the field as usual. He seemed to actually forget whether he took his surname from his mother or his father and got a look on his face whenever someone asked how they were doing at the hospital. Like he couldn't believe someone was asking him that, like he was going to be physically ill.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
It seemed to get really bad until the last day he was at school with the others and Coach Jones asked him to stay behind after practice. Ethan had made Gary wait with him, just sitting in Ethan's car, saying, "We'll say we're waiting for the engine to turn over, it's making a weird noise. Just..."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna make sure he's alright?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
They waited a good hour, the sun gone from the horizon and dusk at center stage, when Fred finally walked back to his car, eyes red like he'd been crying, but something less nervous about him. Like a weight had been lifted and he was a little more sure about what he was going to do when he left the next day with the others.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
He didn't notice them, and they watched as he hopped in his van and the lights from the tail end disappeared, some old songs from twenty years past playing out of his speakers that they could hear.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
They were the same songs Coach Jones sometimes played for the team or in his office when he was doing his work as principal. Stuff that he loved and collected in his own college days as a huge history nerd; playing them on an old Walkman he still had <em>(the team had seen it and teased him endlessly in their Freshman year; Fred shyly saying it was cool)</em> while he used to visit old ruins and fell in love with the Old Spanish Church, moving to Crystal Cove and putting down roots so deep it would take a John Deere Tractor to get them out.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
They asked the Coach himself what was going on, the next day, the man himself seeming...different. Not bad different, but like something had definitely changed.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
"Just give them time, kids," he'd said simply, not shrugging them off, but giving the best answer he could with only his own limited information, "People need to find their own way, and we can't very well stand in theirs."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Gary and Ethan both hoped the man was right going forward. Fred had always been a friend to them, and they'd hate to lose that after all the good he'd done--getting the two of them together, giving Ethan a place to stay when his dad was blatantly homophobic and violent; getting Ethan to file a report when the abuse got really bad and convincing Sheriff Stone to take Gary's statement on multiple incidents so Ethan could file for emancipation and move in with his boyfriend.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Fred was still a good guy, would doubtless always be a good guy. They just had to hope that there would be room for them in his life again when <em>(or <strong>if</strong>)</em> he returned with the <em>actual</em> most important people in his life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Before anyone gets on my ass about this, Gary and Ethan's last names are based on their voice actors for the first season who were also writer/producer/directors for the show. Of course the show didn't give them full names, so I'm working with what I've got.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>